April is a rainy month.

But the air after the rain is always exceptionally cool and fresh, as if there is a piece of not-so-cold ice stuck to the head, which always makes people feel just right and comfortable, and also forgives this rainy season without warning.

The girl quietly poked her head out from among the leaves and looked at the barbecue grill set up not far away. The original curiosity in her light-colored eyes was gone, and she was just staring in that direction, as if in

Waiting for something.

The knee-length skirt she is wearing is a light yellow-green color similar to her eyes. On her feet are brown boots and white knee-high socks. The long and loose translucent cuffs cover half of her palms, and her hands are placed obediently on her knees.

Above, there is a kind of girlish reserve and elegance.

——Although she looks like a forest fairy who has never been out, or a fairy nymph in Greek mythology who lives outside human society, her clothes show that she is an out-and-out modern person.

.

She didn't wait long, and soon she heard the sound of footsteps and the scraping of branches and leaves coming from the woods.

"This trap can really catch hares!" The young man's voice inside was full of surprise and curiosity, "It doesn't look like anything very complicated."

"Because I placed this trap on the animal path, otherwise rabbits wouldn't have gotten in so quickly."

Another voice belonging to an adult sounded very gentle, and his tone was unhurried: "Actually, rabbits are difficult animals to catch. After all, they are very vigilant and good at hiding. Well...of course, there are

It's different when animals help. Do you remember when we helped farmers catch rabbits in Australia?"

"Well. I remember that at that time we went to the local area to borrow several abandoned pet ferrets. Then we went around the rabbit hole and caught hundreds of rabbits on the farm one day. They piled up a cart full of rabbits. The farmer's

His face turned black."

When the girl sitting on the tree heard this, she couldn't help but bend her eyes and smile. She covered her mouth with one hand and swayed her legs and feet slightly on the tree. She seemed to have imagined the hundreds of rabbits piled up there.

What did they look like together, and what was the farmer's expression?

Sigma, who emerged from the grass, seemed to have thought of something, and couldn't help but show a helpless expression: "At that time, there were people from the animal protection organization who came to trouble us."

The girl didn't laugh this time, but put down her hands with some embarrassment, folded her hands together again, turned her eyes in another direction, tried to straighten her waist, and tightened her body.

As if feeling shy and guilty about this.

Bending down to avoid a black willow with drooping branches, Kitahara and Kaede took Sigma's hand and walked back to the beach. They blinked briskly at their children and said in a teasing tone: "So those people were not bitten by rabbits."

Are you sick? I don’t know if I went to the hospital to get tetanus.”

The overpopulated rabbits in Australia are not as good-tempered as people usually think of them. They even bluntly say that eradicating rabbits as invasive creatures in the local area is an absolutely good thing. There are only some people who love animals to the point of being "mad".

Talent will object.

"Who told those people to actually put their hands directly to the hare's mouth?"

Sigma recalled the scene at that time and couldn't help laughing out loud. He followed Beihara and Feng out with some gloating, carrying two fat rabbits that were struggling uneasily in their hands.

These rabbits are all very big. They seem to be living well in this forest, and they are all sleek and smooth.

Kitahara and Kaede walked to the water, took one from Sigma, found the position of the spine, whispered "Sorry", took out a relatively small-looking folding hunting knife from his pocket, and popped it out

The blade cut into the rabbit's spine without hesitation.

In an instant, the rabbit that was still struggling softened. Although it was not dead, it could no longer feel the pain. The next rabbit also followed the same method, cutting a hole on their body to allow them to slowly lose blood.

Die slowly.

"Although the principle of nature is natural selection, we must capture animals out of necessity, not out of pure fun. And

When treating animals, try to make their death as painless as possible."

Kitahara and Kaede touched the heads of the two rabbits with their hands, feeling the temperature of their bodies lowering little by little, and whispered to Sigma, with a rare seriousness in their eyes.

Hearing this, the girl on the tree nodded her head solemnly, showed an expression of approval, and looked at the two people more pleasantly.

At least they are not just sitting here and staring because they are good-looking and boring.

She is not the kind of fanatical animal protectionist, so she doesn't mind the people sleeping here catching wild animals to eat when there is no food, but the survival needs are still different from indiscriminate killing and over-hunting. Obviously, Kitahara and Kaede

That fits her point of view very well.

Sigma also nodded silently.

Although he had been to the wild before, Kitahara and Kaede usually dealt with it by themselves and rarely said this to him. Probably because they knew that they had too much to learn at the time and had no energy to focus on it.

"General animal euthanasia methods include inhaled drugs, non-inhaled drugs, and physical death. We are limited by the situation and generally choose the last method. For example, cervical dislocation, unconscious bleeding, or unconscious rupture.

head……"

Kitahara and Kaede glanced at Sigma who subconsciously shrank his fingers. Not only did they not blame anything, but they gently bent their eyes and wanted to touch each other's face with their hands. However, after noticing that their fingers were stained with blood, they still decided

Instead of doing so, he added in a brisk tone:

"Considering that you may not be able to be ruthless, just ignore this last one. And the difficulty required for this is not low."

"oh."

Sigma noticed the movements of Kitahara and Kaede's hands that were forced to stop, so he blinked his eyes gently and took the initiative to reach out and hold the traveler's fingers that were still stained with blood that had not been washed away. When the other party looked over, he said with some embarrassment.

He pursed his lower lip slightly.

Beihara and Feng were stunned for a moment, and then they also laughed. They stretched out their hands to touch Sigma's face, pinned the other person's hair that fell in front to the side, and then said warmly:

"Of course, since the method of cervical vertebra dislocation is only suitable for some small animals, what I teach you is to destroy the spine to make the animal's lower body lose consciousness, and then bleed it to death. On the one hand, the meat has less bloody smell,

On the other hand, the pain is very low. However, if it is a large animal, it will be a waste of time, and the spread of the smell of blood in the wild is also very dangerous. Of course, I just want you to understand it, just watch and learn slowly, I am here now."

I'm here.

What a reassuring word.

"If it hadn't been for Beiyuan, I wouldn't have gone to a dangerous place with a lot of wild animals."

Sigma thought so, narrowed his light gray eyes, yawned lazily, muttered in his mouth, and didn't care about the smell of blood on Beihara and Feng, and leaned directly against each other and rubbed against each other.

After confirming that Kitahara and Kaede probably really regarded him as "a member of the family", Sigma gradually became more at ease and even became more used to acting like a spoiled child.

Is it a little too pampered?

Kitahara and Kaede skillfully cut open the belly of the rabbit, took out the internal organs of the animal with more parasites and threw them aside, peeled off the outer fur, and removed the parts that were not suitable for eating. Hearing this, he raised the corners of his lips and smiled, feeling in his heart

I was thinking about this somewhat subtle issue, but in the end I didn't care about the person who was relying on me.

In non-principled situations, he is always willing to make concessions for those he cares about.

After the traveler cleaned the rabbit, he weighed it a few times and felt that it was 60% of its original weight. Considering that the weight of the bones was subtracted, it should be reduced a little more. It should be just enough for them to eat, and the excess can be smoked.

save.

The only problem is that it rains from time to time these days, which makes it a bit difficult to smoke and dry.

What's more, there might be one more person.

The traveler glanced thoughtfully at the tree not far away, listening to several wisps of the wind in his ears who were watching the excitement chatting happily, and there was a little smile in his orange-gold eyes.

For a moment, he even wanted to

I opened my perspective to see if the other party was a person with superpowers, but in the end I didn't do so, intending to leave the other party to give me a little "surprise".

But according to what they said, was there a little girl sitting on the tree? He thought a little curiously, but in the end he didn't look any further for fear of scaring the other party.

The girl didn't know that she had been discovered and was called "little girl". She still lowered her head and looked at the two people without moving much. She stared at them with big eyes without blinking. As long as you were patient.

Like a sloth whose responses are always much slower.

Under the tree, Kitahara, Maple and Sigma had already washed the rabbit with boiled water on the shore.

They did not clean up the river. On the one hand, it can be seen from the group of carp that the water pollution of the Mississippi River is not low, and on the other hand, ferocious fish such as alligator gar have been found nearby. The smell

The smell of blood might come over and attack humans.

And there are sharks and alligators in the Mississippi River...

Although this is just a tributary, what if a shark or crocodile really gets lost here?

After the two people quickly processed the prey, Kitahara and Kaede went to spray the surrounding areas with odor-eliminating chemicals, while Sigma skewered the rabbit meat on the barbecue grill that had been prepared and lit a fire with a lighter underneath.

The next step is barbecue. Of course, Kitahara and Kaede are fully responsible for this aspect. Even if they were not very good at this form of barbecue at the beginning, over time, Kitahara and Kaede have already become comfortable with the skills of making this kind of food.

.

"A good sauce can not only increase the flavor of barbecue, but also lock in the tender gravy inside and remove the fishy smell in the meat. The key point is to consider the saltiness in the blood that the barbecue itself cannot drain away, and adjust the salt

quantity."

Kitahara and Kaede patiently turned the kebabs that were exuding a milky white rich aroma, and said to Sigma, whose eyes were shining under the firelight. He spoke to Sigma so hard that he took a deep breath from time to time, probably to endure the constant secretion of saliva.

.

"Of course, controlling the heat of barbecue is also very important. Considering safety issues, it is better to eat fully cooked food in the wild. However, we seem to prefer medium-rare steaks in restaurants...

"

Sigma, who couldn't take his eyes off the roasted meat that was golden and shiny, couldn't help but tilted his head when he heard this, and asked with some surprise: "Eh? Don't we always order well-done?"

"Steaks in Western restaurants are not very well-done. What is said to be well-done is actually medium-rare."

Beihara and Feng turned their heads and said with a smile. When they saw Sigma's eyes suddenly widening, they couldn't help but laugh out loud. They were stared at resentfully by the other party for several seconds.

"Kitahara——! Stop laughing!" This was Sigma who was a little annoyed by the laughter.
To be continued...